


One of these Days

by sparrow2000



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-07
Packaged: 2018-04-13 11:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4519563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrow2000/pseuds/sparrow2000
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Eyghon, Giles is falling apart</p>
            </blockquote>





	One of these Days

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Slash(ish)  
> Disclaimer: Joss and Mutant Enemy et al, own everything. I own nothing.  
> Comments and feedback are cuddled and called George  
> Beta extraordinaire: thismaz  
> Written for 2015 summer_of_giles

**One of these Days**

Giles dumped the rucksack on the bed and started stuffing it with clothes. Jeans, t shirts, socks and underwear were all bunched up together, washed and unwashed, in one screwed up bundle. He could almost hear his grandmother, who’d taught him to pack his first trunk for prep school, chastising him for his lack of care. She’d also have tut-tutted at the decrepit rucksack, but the smart leather holdall he’d had when he arrived in London had gone to the nearest pawn shop months ago, in return for cash. He couldn’t remember what the cash had been for, but then, he couldn’t remember a lot of things these days.

He wished he didn’t remember Randall - dying, screaming - the smell of burning flesh hanging in the air as Eyghon consumed him, the payoff for their hubris and folly. His hands trembled and he hauled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one, inhaling deeply, trying to erase the memories with every exhale. It didn’t help.

“Running away?” Ethan’s voice crawled over him. He could almost feel the words oozing down his spine.

“What makes you think that?” Giles clamped down on his cigarette, grabbed a battered pair of trainers and stuffed them on top of his clothes. He didn’t look around.

“It’s the packing.” Even without looking, Giles knew that Ethan had waved one elegant hand at the rucksack. The gesture would be nonchalant, but the casualness was as studied as everything else that Ethan did. “It gives the impression that you’re going somewhere,” he continued. “I might think you were just bored with the view from this bed and moving to somewhere more appealing. But I find it difficult to think of any view more appealing than this bed. I got the impression you agreed?”

Pulling the leather straps on the top of the rucksack tight, Giles threaded the tongue through the buckle. He took another drag of his cigarette, straightened up and turned.

Ethan was leaning against the door jamb. His red shirt was unbuttoned to just above his navel, exposing an expanse of pale, almost hairless chest. His thumbs were hooked into the belt loops of his jeans, fingertips framing either side of the zip. Maybe he hadn’t waved his hand after all, but Giles would put money on the fact that the picture in his head had been right. “I think you’re overestimating your appeal,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s possible to overestimate my appeal, Ripper.” Ethan placed his right hand over his heart, tapping gently. “I think I might be hurt.”

“Better than dead,” Giles snapped.

“Ah, so that’s what this little display is about.” Ethan smoothed down the front of his shirt and hooked his thumb over the first fastened button. The movement showed off another inch of pale flesh. “You had me worried for a moment it might be personal.”

“Of course, it’s personal. Personal to you and to me. Personal to Phillip and Dierdre.I’m damned sure it was personal to Randall.” Giles closed his eyes and took a long shuddering breath. He counted to five and opened them again, blinking away tears that he wouldn’t let fall. “Damned is probably the right word for all of us.” He looked down at the stub of the cigarette in his hand, and ground it out in a grimy saucer lying on the table by the bed. He noticed distantly that his hand had stopped shaking. He wondered how long that would last.

“We’ll know better next time, you’ll see,” Ethan said. His voice was soothing, but his eyes were narrowed, as if he was working out his next move. “Now we know what not to do, we – “

“There won’t be a next time,” Giles interrupted. There will never be a next time.” He grabbed the rucksack off the bed, hefting over his right shoulder.

“No need to be hasty now, Ripper. Never say never and all that.” Ethan pushed off the door jamb and eased forward. “We had an accident. We’re all very sorry.” The tip of his tongue slipped out between his teeth and traced a damp line along his bottom lip. “You can spank me if you want. You know you’ve always liked doing that.”

Giles free hand flew up, cracking hard against Ethan’s face. “You can’t resist making a smart remark, can you? Randall’s dead. We killed him.”

“If you want to be pedantic, dear boy, technically Eyghon killed him.”

“Sophistry, Ethan. Playing with words doesn’t change the facts.”

“I thought you’d appreciate it. Watchers like to play with words, don’t they? Not ones for action, which is why you were here. You’re a man of action. It’s one of the things that first intrigued me. So fearless. All that defiance wrapped up in the tightest jeans I’d seen outside my own wardrobe.” He paused and traced the tips of his fingers down his cheek where Giles had slapped him. He made the movement look like a caress. “But now...now you’re going back to them, aren’t you? Tail between your legs. Bad dog waiting for a slap on the nose with a rolled up newspaper. Going to turn over and show them your belly, eh Ripper? Perhaps I should call you Rupert now?”

Half a dozen retorts danced on the tip of Giles’ tongue, but none seemed to do justice to the confusion in his head. He felt as if he’d aged a hundred years in the hours since the spell. “I have no idea,” he said finally. “I don’t know where I’m going. But I do know I can’t stay here. That much, at least, is obvious.”

Ethan lifted his hand and curled it around Giles' jaw. “You can.” His fingers dragged across two days of stubble. “Stay. Stay with me.” His thumb rubbed gently across the cleft in Giles' chin. “Please.”

There was a part of Giles that wanted to stand still and let those magic fingers take him back to a place where nothing mattered but sensation and reaction to a hypnotic touch, but then he turned his chin to the side, shying from the feelings dancing on his skin and in the deepest recesses of his mind.“Ethan, I can’t.”

Ethan’s hand fell back to his side and he laughed. It was sharp and brittle. “See what you’ve done to me, Ripper. Acting like a little boy in the playground, pulling the pigtails of the girl I like. I think I’m the one who’s showing his belly.”

There was a pain, like he’d been stabbed, deep in Giles' chest and before he could think of the consequences he closed the tiny space between them and pulled Ethan hard against him. He sought out Ethan’s mouth and there was no softness in their kiss. Tongues stoked against each other and lips were bitten, hard. The taste was intoxicating – the peat of the decent malt they’d stolen from the offie down the road the night before the spell. The spicy tang of the Gitanes Ethan liked to smoke, when he spun tales to the unwary of Parisian liaisons and brothels in Marseille. Under it all, the sweet and heady taste of magic– cloves and cinnamon, bitter chocolate and candied fruit. All the flavours of Christmas and Halloween and every festival in between.

It called to him, enticing and beguiling and his hands dug into Ethan’s hair, tugging and guiding, as if the kiss was the only way they could give each other air to breathe.

Giles’ rucksack slid down off his shoulder. It hung in the crook of his elbow like an anchor, or a ball and chain, and the thought tolled like a bell in the back of his brain. He pulled back, gulping for breath.

Ethan’s eyes were bright, his lips were swollen and his hair looked like he’d just got of bed. He moved forward, chasing another kiss, but stopped short when Giles released a strangled sob. The tears he had forced back just minutes before glittered on the end of his lashes.

Staggering backwards, Giles hauled his rucksack back up onto his shoulder. It lay against his back like the weight of every sin he’d ever committed or ever would. His throat was tight and he pushed down another sob. He stepped around Ethan, brushing off the hand that tried to catch him as he passed.

“Ripper,” Ethan whispered.

Giles shook his head. “I’m sorry,” he said and walked away. He didn’t know whether his words were meant for Ethan, Randall, or himself.

He wasn’t sure which option hurt the most.


End file.
